This invention relates to a method for transferring articles.
More specifically, this invention relates to a method for transferring articles and which can be used to transfer food products in a packaging system.
Systems of this kind are generally equipped with gripper heads having suction cups which pick up one or more articles and place them in a packaging container.
The articles to be packaged are placed on conveyor belts in such a way that customary pickup devices (grippers) equipped with gripper head can pick the articles up when these are positioned under them at the gripper heads. The pickup devices which have captured the articles with their gripper heads are then moved towards a container in order to fill it.
The articles are usually fed in “ranks”, that is to say, in rows.
In many cases, however, in most packaging systems, the articles are positioned on the conveyor belt in a relatively uncontrolled or erratic manner and this makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the gripper heads to pick up the articles simultaneously.
In effect, if the articles are not perfectly aligned and spaced from each other according to precise values, the recurrent risk is that the gripper head which should pick them up simultaneously is unable to capture them all correctly.
In other words, it is very difficult for all the articles in one row to be aligned precisely enough to allow them to be picked up by a single pickup device (or “gripper”).
To pick up all the articles in one row, therefore, the user must resort to individual gripper actions, thus increasing the number of movements necessary, that is, the total pickup time, and consequently increasing the number of pickup devices needed to complete the operation.